Weekly Fantasy Hijinks

607 – How have they managed without one this long?

In D&D, there has always been four classes that, nine times out of ten, make up your standard adventuring party: Fighter (or “fighting-man” as it was originally called), Wizard (or “magic-user”), Rogue (“thief”) and Cleric, the guy who can heal with a touch and ward off undead. The fact that our little gang of misfits has survived this long without someone there to patch them up either speaks to their toughness or to the fact that most of their fights haven’t been all that bad. Either that, or Dhur owns stock in a Healing Potion Brewery. Hmm… beer that heals… I like that idea. Too bad it already exists: I believe it’s called Guinness Stout. 🙂

Anyway, welcome to the Unnamed Royal Adventuring Company #47, Brother Leon!

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9 Comments

I thought Ch’ip was the cleric all this time, the “fighting monk” specialization, late 2nd ed. AD&D. After all, his goddess did give them some sweet parting gifts! (I played as one, once. (Mostly played as a Ranger.) Quarterstaff and/or nunchucks were the allowed weapons, IIRC, otherwise you used your hands and feet, in true Hollywood Kung-fu style!)

It’s fairly typical for a bard to take some healing spells in 3rd edition.

In 4th, which I believe this comic was based on at the start, you get “defender” (basically the tank), “striker” (damage-dealer), “controller” (crowd-controls the enemy) and “leader” (support, including healing). Out of the classic four, these roles would be filled by fighter, rogue, wizard and cleric respectively. However, bards in 4E also fit within the “leader” role, so in theory at least, they can take the role of a cleric. (In practice, divine classes of any role tended to be better at healing than non-divine classes, so a bard alone doesn’t provide the healing a cleric does, but a bard plus a paladin possibly can.)

What they’re missing is a controller.

5th I’m less familiar with, but I think it’s reasonably similar to 3rd – they backtracked on a lot of 4th’s changes.

@ Rob, while a Guinness Stout constitutes a full meal in itself, which is always helpful to healing, it actually constitutes a strength potion. “Guinness for strength” has been a long standing billing, I believe.

@Stardrake- I never got a 4th edition vibe when reading the comic (I tried to quickly look for a Word of God reference- TV TROPE terminology, Rob, don’t let it go to your head :/- but couldn’t find anything. Grantex, I looked at it when it came out, determined that the new path was simply to try and mimic MORAN mechanics (ie simplistic limit) with the bonus of requiring players to buy more books to just flesh out classes, and just never bothered with it after. But either way, nothing in the comic made feel like it didn’t fit with 3.0/3.5. Of course, MS doesnt overtly go into mechanics pime OOTS (which that from page 1)

Yikes, guys! I think Dhur got a point that Ch’p and us have all been missing. Sure, be delicate about a grown woman’s age, but if that grey beard is a teenager, would any, ahem, fantasy that Ch’p might have to date about Becky been in squick territory?